As the title says I am looking at helping a friend build his new tower. He has some unique requirements. The first is AMD, he wants all AMD parts, mostly because he likes their business practices a bit more than intel/nvidia. He wants a tower pc, in a “bigger” case. The use case is also a bit unique. He will be using it for gaming, some different games, squad, arma 3, Halo TMCC, and deep rock galactic are some examples of the games he plays. But mainly he wants a new build so he can run a dedicated Rust language server on it to help speed up his Rust development workflow. Does most of his development on a laptop but would look at running a dedicated language server on the tower. He will be running Arch Linux as his main OS as well so any input on the parts, mainly mobo I guess, and their Linux support is appreciated. Here is the parts list Part List - AMD Ryzen 9 7950X, Radeon RX 7900 XT, Fractal Design Meshify 2 XL ATX Full Tower - PCPartPicker . Besides the Linux aspect, my main concern is cooling. I figure in that case with maybe a fan or two added the NH-d15 should be plenty for that cpu, but if anyone has other thoughts let me know. A final bit of details, we are in Canada so our preferred retailer is MemoryExpress and we are looking at around 3k-3500$ Canadian doleridoos for the budget.
D15 still a champ… Of course, we now have the new iteration, making its way public
I’d also vouch on more fans – that GPU would likely be, the main heat source
The only reason you need a full tower case these days, is if you are planning to:
- Go full custom loop watercooling with two or more radiators
- Run an eATX HEDT system like Threadripper
- Plan to install 8+ HDDs
- Plan to utilize every last PCIe slot (like, for instance, 4x dual slot GPUs)
Other than that, something like the Cooler Master MasterBox Q300L or the Fractal Design Focus G Mini are plenty for the use cases of your friend. Here is a revised build that might be helpful:
| Type | Item | Price |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 9 7950X | $556.32 |
| CPU Cooler | Noctua NH-D15 | $109.95 |
| Motherboard | MSI MAG X670E TOMAHAWK WIFI | $309.99 |
| Memory | G.Skill Ripjaws S5 2x 16GB DDR5-6000 CL30 | $104.99 |
| Storage | Samsung 980 Pro 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 | $129.99 |
| Video Card | PowerColor Hellhound Radeon RX 7900 XT | $849.99 |
| Case | Fractal Design Focus 2 RGB | $89.98 |
| Power Supply | Corsair RM850e (2023) 850W | $129.99 |
| Total | $2281.20 |
Some notes:
- The Focus 2 is IMHO a prettier case and you sacrifice very little over the Meshify for a cheaper price
- The Tomahawk 670E is a better motherboard and offers more m.2 and PCIe slots over the Gigabyte one - it is also more expensive, unfortunately.
- The Powercolor Hellhound is a more reputable brand than the MSI Gaming trio and is a better built card at the same price
- Added a 2TB m.2 drive in there - when you can get a good 2TB boot drive for $129, you should accept this. Leaving the boot drive out lowers the price to ~$2150.
- The Noctua DH15 might be overkill for this build, especially as your friend will probably want to run his 7950X in 65W mode to limit power draw. I think the DH12 should be a good enough cooler for that, but hey, the bigger the better right?
Of course, you could replace the motherboard for a Gigabyte Aorus B650I Ultra and cram it into a SFF case like the Dan A4 or Loque Ghost S1 - that would be more or less the same power for a quarter of the volume too. But let’s start off like this
I thought MSI is a better brand overall. Ive long been sketched out by Powercolor but I really dont know much about them. Its just that during the tail end of this Pandemic, their card has always been available as if it is the least desired gpu. Have you any experience about them personally?
The list looks good! The case is a bit excessive for the build list. The guy above listed out many good reasons supporting that logic. I’m only adding to recommend the non XL variant of the Meshify Meshify 2. It would be great here and would maintain that fantastic Meshify aesthetic.
The XL fits four 120mm intake fans in the front panel, it’s that big. The increased size brings a fan cost increase vs the the non XL and it’s room for three 120mm fans in the front panel. Going with the non xl is like getting an exhaust fan for free!
Couple that with case cost savings your buddy will be able to afford a good lunch for the both of you.
Powercolor and Sapphire are AMD exclusive brands. The reason they are so low is usually because people buy MSI GeForce and then go “Oh, GeForce sucks now, I should go AMD, MSI is what I bought last time, I’ll get that one this time too.”
Among those of us running AMD for a long time, Powercolor is considered to be right up there with Sapphire as the most stable AMD cards.
Also, as we know from the days of B350/B450… Just because brand [x] does good products with [chip line Y], they do not necessarily make good products with [chip line Z]. E.g, Asus might make wonderful GeForce cards but will skimp on Radeon, Gigabyte could make great B550 boards (AMD) and skimp on B660 boards (Intel), and so on. Always keep up with reviews.
This, but also look for an AMD EXPO compatible RAM kit.
Replying to my own post for some updates.
First off thanks everyone for the input. The fact that most of the input is along the lines of “yeah that’s fine but x brand would be better or y case is better” means I’ve not made any really stupid choices at least.
OK so for parts, while I agree that the case is overkill, It’s what my buddy wants and not really my place to argue. There’s nothing about it that will cause problems so there’s no reason really to not get it if he wants it. As for the GPU, personally, I have had a really good experience with msi both on AMD, NVIDIA cards, and motherboards to boot. Same with Gygabyte. As mentioned, we would really like to get all the parts from Memoryexpress in our city here and they do not carry Powercolor afaik, In fact, our choices for 7900xt right now at that store are limited to MSI, Gigabyte, XFX, and Asus.
Edit: Missed one other thing. No boot drive was Included because we will be bringing over the ssd from his existing build as he has a pretty large capacity boot drive already.
Be aware of the last year or so of issues with Gigabyte, especially if your friend runs into issues that requre RMA for the motherboard. Personally, I’m avoiding them just like I avoid newegg. I don’t mind paying a little more to go with a manufacturer and vendor that don’t have a history of refusing responsibility for their obvious mistakes.
Otherwise looks fine.
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